Airfield

Two men died when an ultralight aircraft plunged 300 feet to the ground near Rio de Janeiro, officials at the airfield said. Piloting the craft was the president of the Cirus Ultralight Club, Marcelo Giffoni. On board was television cameraman Antonio Carvalho Cruz, whose film, broadcast later, showed panoramic shots of the airfield and then the spiraling of the aircraft as it plunged to the ground. Sources said the load on the plane was 66 pounds above the recommended limit.

CEBU, Philippines - With pressure mounting to speed up the distribution of aid to victims of Typhoon Haiyan, the U.S. aircraft carrier George Washington and its strike group arrived Thursday in the Philippines, and officials said relief flights could take place around the clock at two airports. Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, commander of the George Washington Strike Group, said the carrier and cruisers Antietam and Cowpens would take up positions off the east coast of Samar island "to begin to assess the damage and to provide logistical and emergency support, including medical care and water supplies," according to a Pentagon news release.

An airfield groundskeeper here shot one of his bosses to death and wounded the other, then fled in a plane, dying minutes later when it crashed and burned. Kenneth Jerolaman, 70, also shot at a neighbor of the Labate Aviation airfield before stealing the plane, authorities said. Domenic Silverio was killed in the Saturday night shooting in Kintnersville, a Philadelphia suburb. His partner, Sal Labate, 60, was hospitalized.

Retired Marine Brig. Gen. Gordon Gayle, who received the Navy Cross for leadership and bravery during the assault on Peleliu, one of the bloodiest and most complex and controversial battles fought by Marines during World War II, has died. He was 95. Gayle died April 21 at an assisted-living facility in Farnham, Va., after suffering a stroke, according to the U.S. Marine Corps. As an officer with the 1st Marine Division, Gayle led troops in five key battles in World War II, starting with Guadalcanal in 1942, where Marines, after weeks of fierce jungle fighting, stopped the advance of Japanese troops toward Australia.

A pilot trying to duplicate Charles A. Lindbergh's 1927 solo New York-to-Paris flight abandoned the attempt after 7 1/2 hours Friday and landed his experimental plane in Canada when he realized he was burning too much fuel, a spokesman said. Mark Hirt, 24, landed the Spirit of Kansas City safely in St. John's, Newfoundland, said Win Perkins, a spokesman for the project. Hirt took off from Kennedy International Airport at 7:12 a.m. with 100 gallons of fuel.

Good grief! Is there so little going on in this town that you have to waste a whole page reporting on such cultural milestones as a record burning in New Jersey, the commission of a bronze sculpture at an Omaha airfield and a theater opening in El Paso (Morning Report, March 2)? I have yet to find anything of the slightest interest in your new Morning Report. Some advice: leave the drippy two-second novelties from around the world to TV and radio--and let Calendar get back to more in-depth stories about the arts in Los Angeles.

CEBU, Philippines - With pressure mounting to speed up the distribution of aid to victims of Typhoon Haiyan, the U.S. aircraft carrier George Washington and its strike group arrived Thursday in the Philippines, and officials said relief flights could take place around the clock at two airports. Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, commander of the George Washington Strike Group, said the carrier and cruisers Antietam and Cowpens would take up positions off the east coast of Samar island "to begin to assess the damage and to provide logistical and emergency support, including medical care and water supplies," according to a Pentagon news release.

Retired Marine Brig. Gen. Gordon Gayle, who received the Navy Cross for leadership and bravery during the assault on Peleliu, one of the bloodiest and most complex and controversial battles fought by Marines during World War II, has died. He was 95. Gayle died April 21 at an assisted-living facility in Farnham, Va., after suffering a stroke, according to the U.S. Marine Corps. As an officer with the 1st Marine Division, Gayle led troops in five key battles in World War II, starting with Guadalcanal in 1942, where Marines, after weeks of fierce jungle fighting, stopped the advance of Japanese troops toward Australia.

Re "A Giant El Toro Park, the Will of the People," Orange County Commentary, May 6: Is Larry Agran crazy? Does he think Orange County voters will encumber themselves once they find out how much it will cost for them to finance the hundreds of millions of dollars--tearing up a fine airfield and building a park from scratch--for a facility to be used mainly for the city of Irvine? Absolutely not, especially when they can have a much-needed airport that will make money, create fine jobs and relieve us from drowning in our need for more air carrier space.

Probably nobody cares (I've tried to (straighten out) the Smithcliffs saga before), but the Nov. 11 article "Scaling Smithcliffs" is not entirely correct. The full name of the original owner/builder was Caroline Wilhelmina Dobbins, and the daughter for whom she added a summer home to the acreage was Florence May Lowe. There was no child named Wilhelmina. Florence May's daughter, Florence, later became known as "Pancho." An early and noted aviatrix, Pancho did more than add a runway to her inherited property.

The Bob Hope Airport authority has agreed to pay $2 million to Lockheed Martin Corp. in exchange for a guarantee from the aerospace company to cover the cost of a $108-million cleanup of contaminated groundwater under part of the airport. Airport officials said the deal was an economical solution to a problem that could have cost much more. Lockheed spokesman Gary Cambre said the settlement, announced late last week, "is fair and equitable," with the Burbank airport paying its share of costs and Lockheed Martin agreeing to work with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and with other potentially responsible parties.

Bob Hope Airport officials believe that if a picture is worth a thousand words, then they have plenty to say in their dispute with Lockheed Martin Corp. over groundwater contamination. The two parties are clashing in court over who must pay federally mandated cleanup costs related to toxins under the airport. Part of the dispute centers on a fire pit on the southwest portion of the airfield, where the Environmental Protection Agency believes residue contributed to soil contamination.

President Obama made a brief, unannounced visit Friday to Afghanistan. But in a scenario that seemed symbolic of star-crossed U.S. relations with the administration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the two leaders were unable to meet face to face. The U.S. president visited American troops at Bagram airfield, a sprawling base north of Kabul. But a massive dust storm prevented him from making the short helicopter trip to meet with Karzai at his presidential palace in the capital, as the two men had planned.

In the early 1920s, long before it became famous for roller-skating, Venice was the capital of another sport: stunt flying. It was a time, as author Don Dwiggins put it, when barnstormers and carnival fliers gathered at DeLay Airfield "to try out new ways to cheat death for money. " When a daredevil thought of a new maneuver that the movies or newsreels might buy, he'd drop out of the continuous poker game in the DeLay hangar to give it a try (hoping he'd live to be dealt another hand)

Reporting from Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, and Mexico City -- U.S. military officials in Haiti said Thursday that the use of three additional airfields and the capital's seaport would boost of the flow of food, water and medical attention to earthquake victims -- at least half a million of whom, according to one count, are scattered in more than 400 camps around Port-au-Prince. Air Force Gen. Douglas Fraser, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, said the military had begun using two airfields in the neighboring Dominican Republic and one south of Port-au-Prince, which was devastated in the Jan. 12 quake.

After years of effort, Los Angeles International Airport and other commercial airports across the country have continued to reduce runway incursions that can endanger planes taxiing to and from terminals, the Federal Aviation Administration announced Thursday. At LAX, the nation's third busiest airport, FAA figures show that the number of incursions has dropped from 26 in 2000 -- including six serious ones -- to eight this year, all of them minor. Nationally, the number of serious incursions has declined from 67 in 2000 to 12 this year.

William R. Melton, a World War II pilot and member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen--the first African American flying unit in the U.S. military--died Sept. 2 in Los Angeles of complications from heart disease and diabetes. He was 78. As a fighter pilot, Melton flew more than 108 missions over North Africa and Europe, guarding B-17 bombers that were crucial to the air campaign against the Axis.

Los Angeles County supervisors will consider at their meeting today whether to commission a $300,000 study of development possibilities at Wm. J. Fox Airfield in Lancaster. Among other things, the study would examine the potential for expanding the county-owned general aviation airport into a commercial commuter airport.

The remote airstrip, encircled by Montenegro's snowcapped mountains and overrun by grazing sheep, was the setting for the death of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941. But after World War II, it also played a role in the birth of a new state, Israel, serving as a key staging base during its struggle for independence. Recently declassified documents in Israel and Serbia reveal that the airfield helped ensure the survival of the new Jewish state, as part of a cloak-and-dagger operation in 1948 to provide warplanes for its nascent air force in Israel's war for independence.